Top Doom Metal Artists on Rhapsody Online

Lacuna Coil

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:37:27 -0800

Translated from Italian as "empty spiral," Lacuna Coil works simultaneously within doom, black and goth metal spheres marked by somber keyboards and female singer Cristina Scabbia trading off with male singer Andrea Ferro. The band formed in Milan in 1994, and became virtual household names on the European metal scene through high-profile tours and the commercial and critical reception of their 1999 debut album, In A Reverie. With Comalies, released in 2004, Lacuna Coil continued to gain respect and popularity, avoiding the pop packaging of aesthetically similar band Evanessence. Karmacode, marked by a stylistic shift toward heaviness, followed in 2007. - Mike McGuirk

Mastodon

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:31:04 -0800

Formed by drummer Brann Dailor and guitarist Bill Keliher after meeting at a High On Fire show in 1999, Mastodon have turned heads, damaged eardrums, resurrected the twin guitar sorcery of Thin Lizzy and gotten themselves nominated for a Grammy while putting out records that perennially crack the top 10 in critics' year-end best-of polls. Following a nine-song demo in 2000 and an EP in 2001, the quartet released a full-length called Remission in 2002. But it was the Moby Dick-themed Leviathan (2004) that gained them national recognition, and after their third record (Call of the Mastodon, a compilation of early material) appeared in 2006, the band switched from Relapse Records to Warner Bros. and released Blood Mountain later that year. Blood Mountain garnered Mastodon a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance. With appearances in video-game soundtracks, on late-night TV shows and at countless festivals -- not to mention the well-deserved respect they have in metal circles -- Mastodon represent one of the very high points of the extreme music genre. - Mike McGuirk

Type O Negative

Fri, 4 Dec 2009 13:19:31 -0800

Sometime between their first and second album, Type O Negative underwent a bizarre, lycanthropic transformation from ultra-Heavy Metal meisters to Goth burlesques. Singer Peter Steele nurtured a male vamp sexual persona driven by lust and fascinated by the points of convergence between passion and death. The band, meanwhile, took the tempo way down into a murky cauldron of Satanic mass keyboards and guitar notes that sounded like depth charges. The band's albums and performances invariably attempt to re-enact vaguely pagan Phallus-worship rites that are campier, but in the end only mildly more interesting, than standard "cock rock" proteges. - Chad Driscoll

Down

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 11:07:01 -0800

Down is accidentally a heavy metal supergroup. On its first album, NOLA, the band consisted of New Orleans natives and childhood friends: Pantera singer Phil Anselmo, Pepper Keenan of Corrosion Of Conformity, Eyehategod's Jim Bower and Crowbar's Todd Strange. But for II, released in 2002, the group had been pared back to Anslemo, Kennan and Bower, adding in Texan and former Pantera bassist Rex Brown to complete the roster. Down plays doom-y, boogying southern metal with strong ZZ Top elements and the occasional semi-psychedelic break. On 2007's III: Over the Under, Anselmo broke out of his creative shell, adding emotionally charged lyrics to Down's repertoire. - Jen Guyre

Amorphis

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:35:40 -0700

Throughout the '90s, Amorphis have moved from violent, vitriolic aggression to high-Gothic atmospheres. Inspired by the progressive side of Metal, they intertwine their macabre sounds with elaborate orchestrations and create spacious epics of clear instrumentation and vocals. - Marc Kate

Epica

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:51:35 -0800

High On Fire

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:05:58 -0800

Formed in the early 2000s by former Sleep guitarist Matt Pike, High on Fire are a mercilessly heavy stoner metal outfit. The major discernable difference between the two bands is that where Sleep specialized in turgid, slow-sludge overkill, High on Fire tend to amp up the tempos. The Sabbath and Melvins influences are still very present in High on Fire, but Pike writes tighter, faster songs and gives his exceptional guitar playing plenty of room for stretching out with explosive, often psychedelic guitar solos. Their debut, The Art of Self Defense, came out in 2001. Highlighted by the incredible "10,000 Years," that album and its 2002 follow-up, Surrounded By Thieves, along with a 2003 release of Sleep's legendary "Dopesmoker" track (a 60-minute exploration of the spot where bong hits and heavy metal mythology meet) heralded a second wind for the whole stoner rock genre. A good thing too, because judging from Songs for the Deaf, it seems like Queens of the Stone Age just don't have all that much to say. Thankfully Pike, and his obsessions with the existence of yetis, mystical Christianity and the heaviest of heavy metal, appears to be far from finished. The band released Blessed Black Wings in 2005, which was produced by the infamous Steve Albini. - Mike McGuirk

Isis

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:08:21 -0800

Sludge-like guitars move slow and low, creeping along in a huge distorted way. The sound goes from a desolate quiet to a burning (but still slow) growl with eruptions of guitars, drum, and bass and raw screaming vocals. - Mark Murrmann

Gojira

Fri, 2 Oct 2009 11:02:56 -0700

Formed in 1996 in Bayonne, France, this progressive death/doom metal band didn't make its U.S. debut until 2006 when Prosthetic Records released the acclaimed third full-length From Mars To Sirius. Originally called Godzilla, vocalist/guitarist Joe Duplantier, guitarist Christian Andreu, bassist Jean-Michel Labadie and drummer Mario Duplantier were legally forced to change their name due to copyright infringement. They decided on Gojira, the Latin translation of the Japanese title for Godzilla. Rooted in death metal, the band also utilizes sludge and doom metal undertones for a progressive, technically advanced sound that lyrically tackles socio-political issues like global warming and spiritual theories like Impermanence. - Jen Guyre

Dark Tranquillity

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:55:28 -0700

Dark Tranquillity's vocalist swings in a wide emotional pendulum during each performance. Sometimes he grunts with the voice of an ogre, but he can also croon with the dejected intensity of a suicidal torch singer. Such diversity is essential to the band's wide-ranging music, which integrates technical metal into operatic structures. - Chad Driscoll

Paradise Lost

Sat, 3 Oct 2009 10:45:26 -0700

Few bands have emerged from the dark/Doom/Death Metal scene and shown such a willingness to experiment and evolve. Paradise Lost's earlier recordings are monochromatically brutal -- puissant platters of tomahawking guitars and grunted vocals. Recent efforts have shown the band branching into Prog and Industrial directions, trading in guitar violence for icy keyboards and gruff tones for melodic singing. - Chad Driscoll

Tristania

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:08:33 -0800

Folkloric Scandinavian Black Metal with gothic touches galore -- operatic female backing vocals, funereal bell peals, phantom-of-the-opera organs, the works. So effusively Romantic, it sounds Wagnerian. For all you troll-metal fans looking to make the transition to high-brow classical, this ought to do the trick. - Chad Driscoll

Agalloch

Wed, 1 Apr 2009 22:18:02 -0700

While Agalloch's gothic, melancholy moods take hold from the first instant, their subtly crafted melodies take a little longer to seep in. That's okay, as the songs stretch into the eight or ten minute range, the understated, clean-toned guitar figures have time to leave their mark. Spacious production and evil vocal whispers enhance the feeling of sorrowful majesty. - Will York

The Sword

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:46:50 -0800

Austin-based doom quartet the Sword formed in 2003 with singer/guitarist/project mastermind J.D. Cronise at the helm. A year later, the Sword solidified their cast with frontman Cronise, guitarist Kyle Shutt, bassist Bryan Richie and drummer Trivett Wingo. Garnering sonic inspiration from stoner/doom legends Sleep along with heavy thrashers Slayer and early metal progenitors Black Sabbath, this crushing foursome created a much-buzzed-about throwback sound. After debuting at famed local music fest SXSW, the Sword released their venerated first album, Age of Winters, in 2006 to critical acclaim, and returned in 2008 with the darker, heavier Gods of the Earth. - Jen Guyre

Katatonia

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:52:48 -0800

Katatonia create a fusion of 1980s Goth and metal. This doesn't result in the violent blasphemies of Black Metal, but an introverted, melancholic sound. Their weeping guitars spill tears onto downturned, sorrowful vocals. - Marc Kate

Electric Wizard

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:23:25 -0800

Stoner Rock emerged as a sludgy backlash against the extreme velocity, technicality and brutality of post-Thrash Metal. It endeavored to return to the primal soup that gave rise to Black Sab, Blue Cheer and Deep Purple. No band better exemplifies this trend than England's Electric Wizard. Their sticky resin riffs supply amazingly long hits, songs regularly surpassing the ten-minute mark. If, while listening to bands like Sleep and Acrimony, you find yourself nodding out during the blackened slugfests of down-tuned guitar and droning basslines, you may find this to be a difficult traverse. Electric Wizard manage to out-heavy both of those bands by burrowing even deeper into a molten pitch of de-tuned rumble and piping feedback. The lyrics are pretty churlish, sporting references to a Chthonic world of wizards, warlocks, demons and such, but somehow it doesn't detract. Fans of this stuff come for one thing, basically: godly heavy guitars. Of that, Electric Wizard have a mother lode. - Chad Driscoll

Suffocation

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:51:08 -0800

When Suffocation vocalist Frank Mullin "sings," it sounds just like a long, sustained eructation*. One listen and you'd swear Satan himself had set up shop in that man's vocal chords. We're talking Exorcist material here. With devastating sonic brutality as their goal, this band set upon their instruments like bloodthirsty marauders. This is motivational music for serial killers.

*belch - Chad Driscoll

Anathema

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:52:47 -0800

Saint Vitus

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:23:24 -0800

Before the epic drudgery of '90s Doom Metal bands like Type O Negative and Kyuss, early-'80s artists like Candlemass, Trouble and Saint Vitus had already dredged up the rotting corpses of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple to produce gritty, bass-heavy Metal that moved at a lethargic pace. Saint Vitus' songs, in particular, are painfully slow. Their riffs sound like a dump truck unloading a payload of gravel in slow motion. Their tracks always feel like they are accelerating towards some cumulative velocity, but they usually remain, from beginning to end, an oozing, amorphous form. Vocalist Scott Reagers led their haunting epics of horror and suffering with his chilling, raspy voice. - Marc Kate

Sleep

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:03:39 -0700

The torpid opening chords of Sleep's Holy Mountain (1993) signaled to all that the droning drug rock of Black Sabbath was rearing its ugly head once more. With this album, Sleep usurped from Kyuss the Stoner Rock throne. Though these bong-blasted San Franciscans can induce fatigue at times with their endlessly repeated rhythms and hung-out-on-the-line riffs, these guys are gods to devotees of sky-darkening palls of feedback and down-tuned guitar chug. Their fifty-two-minute-long, one-track album Jerusalem (1999) is by far the band's most ambitious study in restraint. For much of the epic bad-Acid Rock trip, the band lies dormant beneath a mesmerizing din of paranoid doom, suddenly leaping into monster riffs and fierce two-guitar unisons. In every song they record, Sleep descend on listeners with the patience and confidence of vultures scenting death. To some, the advance of their black pinions will sound angelic. - Chad Driscoll

Crowbar

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:43:07 -0700

Surely, New Orleans' Crowbar are one of the heaviest bands around -- physically and artistically. Since 1992, these Metal titans have waged a brutal campaign on listeners' peace of mind by assailing them with darkly pessimistic lyrics couched in thick, sludgy riffs. - Chad Driscoll

Kylesa

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:10:23 -0700

Goatsnake

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 10:23:24 -0800

Goatsnake, which features ex-members of the Obsessed, Engine Kid and Scream, do something slightly different from all those bands. If roiling power chords and how-low-can-you-go guitars are what you seek, you need look no further. You can just picture the players setting fire to their instruments behind dipping curtains of hair on a smoke-filled stage. Preternaturally heavy, this band will leave you livid -- all Black Sabbath black and Blue Cheer blue. - Chad Driscoll

Iron Age

Thu, 6 Aug 2009 10:40:01 -0700

Moonspell

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:04:56 -0700

Portugese metal band with a unique sound that seems to change upon each listen. Majestic Goth vocals and keyboards, shifting Black Metal structures and a clean but aggressive guitar sound.

Wolves In The Throne Room

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 12:39:39 -0800

Formed in Olympia, Wash., in 2002, this ambient black metal quartet mixes the transcendental mindset of their Olympic Mountains hometown with pagan ideology and the primitive sound of '90s Norwegian black metal. Brothers Nathan (guitarist, vocalist) and Aaron Weaver (drummer), along with Will Lindsay (guitarist) and Ross Sewage (bassist), create atmospheric soundscapes that are emotional, pointed and heavy both in sound and statement. Wolves in the Throne Room often perform outdoors and are radical environmentalists. But sociopolitics aside, the band garnered mainstream attention for the lengthy epics and squalling sounds featured on its debut album, Diadem of 12 Stars. After signing with Southern Lord, WITTR released Two Hunters to critical acclaim in 2007, returning in 2009 with Black Cascade. - Jen Guyre

My Dying Bride

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:50:10 -0800

In the early and mid 1990s, along with fellow Northern Englanders Paradise Lost and Anathema, My Dying Bride formed the third prong in the emergence of doom metal. Over the course of their first three albums, the band took Tony Iommi's most torpid riffological ideas and applied to them both doleful strings and the grunting giant vocals of Aaron Stainthorpe, and then tossed revved up death metal breakdowns into the middle of it all, birthing a new form of metal in the process. With the release of The Angel and the Dark River, in 1996, however, Bride dropped the death-grunt vocals and took their already flowery music in a more gothic direction. A series of albums followed, further distancing the band from their original fanbase and eroding their critical standing, but with 2001's The Dreadful Hours, My Dying Bride seemingly came full circle and returned to the pure heaviness they made their name with. The band continues to put out records, with A Line of Deathless Kings appearing in 2006. - Mike McGuirk

Sunn O)))

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 12:39:39 -0800

Sunn O))) perform no-tempo dirge metal with zero drums and meditative levels of repetition. The band plays live at previously inconceivable volumes (for first-timers) while dressed in black cloaks and shrouded in the disorienting output of multiple fog machines. Main instigators Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson have performed together in Burning Witch and separately in Goatsnake (Anderson) and Khanate (O'Malley). With rare vocals and endless songs that feature subtle, practically subconscious melodic changes, Sunn O))) are generally considered the loudest and most challenging of the drone/doom metal scene. With six proper albums and twice that amount released in live material, splits and EPs, Sunn O))), while best experienced live (and with a lawn chair), manage to translate their holy sorcerer metal to vinyl with no drop-off in quality. That is, as long as you have good headphones or a sound system that can handle bass tone so low one wonders if man was ever really meant to hear them. - Mike McGuirk

Neurosis

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 09:35:40 -0700

Neurosis has explored a lot of territory since their formation in the mid-'80s. Like pilgrims returning from travels far past the other side, their words and sounds are those of people who have seen too much. Their words delve into mythology and archetypes that might describe some baroque fantasy, but the world they describe is very much our own -- a harsher reality than we are used to confronting in Western Culture. They speak of human existence at its most extreme abjection and beauty. When listening to Neurosis, you are directed head-first into the abyss, facing your most ferocious demons, gloriously illuminated like totems. Though their music has very obvious roots in Metal's guitar density and roaring vocals, they orchestrate their sounds with a complexity few Metal bands can touch. Strings, samplers and keyboards swim through soul-stealing guitars and accumulate as melodic, oftentimes Ambient passages that bridge songs together and create a grounded respite before the next distorted chord falls. Their instruments fall together as a hypnotic pulse following rhythms that border on tribal. You could certainly listen to Neurosis and just rock out, but do you dare to follow their lead into psychic and spiritual risk? - Marc Kate

Torche

Wed, 13 May 2009 12:17:28 -0700

Miami is renowned for birthing many pop acts, so it's no surprise this is also the hometown of stoner pop quartet Torche. Formed in 2004 out of the ashes of local doom heroes Floor, vocalist/guitarist Steve Brooks, guitarist Juan Montoya, bassist Jonathan Nunez and drummer Rick Smith showcase a strong pop sensibility, but mainly take cues from 1990s grunged-out doomsayers like the Melvins and smoke-laden jamsters like Kyuss. To cultivate a place in the doom world, the stoner rock world, the hipster metal world and quite possibly even the mainstream, their self-titled Robotic Empire debut focused on monolithic riffs with catchy vocal overlays. As they honed their sound over the next couple years, Torche changed up their roaring metallic sound for more rock-based riffs. Though still catchy, and still rooted in stoner sludge, 2008's Hydra Head debut Meanderthal takes Torche's pop hooks to an indie rock arena. - Jen Guyre

Sentenced

Mon, 7 Sep 2009 09:55:30 -0700

Slightly growly vocals, rough guitars, and mid-tempo rhythms round out their melodically metallic sound.

Boris

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:38:53 -0800

Active since coming together in 1992, Boris remain unknown in Japan, but internationally they have long been recognized as leaders in experimental metal. Over the course of a 16-album and countless 7-inch career, the trio is largely associated with drone and doom but has also messed with straight rock, stoner, noise and ambient genres. Boris are legendary for unrelentingly slow, feedback-drenched dirges that stretch well over the 60-minute mark. They also construct equally long, highly orchestrated epics as well as shorter (for them) Melvins-influenced slow-jams. Their first album, Absolutego, came out in 1996, and as most of their material was not available in the U.S. until Southern Lord started reissuing their catalog in the early 2000s, they remained a sort of holy grail of stoner metal for years. With their latest releases -- as well as frequent and varied collaborations -- finally readily available, the band has consistently lived up to the hype while paying no attention to the praise given in the mainstream press. Boris may no longer be the sought-after prize of true metal geeks, but they remain a vital and groundbreaking part of the extreme metal scene. - Mike McGuirk

Acid King

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 13:14:53 -0800

Pure evil bleeds slowly out of impossibly thick guitars, deep female vocals and sluggish, crushing drums. Scary back-masked drum parts and constant reminders of the ill will that lurks within us all will have you running to your nearest church for sanctuary. - Mark Murrmann

Om

Thu, 28 May 2009 10:31:14 -0700

Om is the post-Sleep project of bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Haikus, the erstwhile rhythm section for that seminal band. Following the 1993 "Dopesmoker" debacle -- in which newly signed Sleep entered into a protracted battle of wills with London Records over the band's refusal to accept that their major-label debut would be anything less than a single 60-plus-minute track about weed -- Sleep fell apart and a disillusioned Cisneros retreated from the music scene for years. In 2004 he and Haikus started jamming again, with the results evolving into Om. San Francisco psych label Holy Mountain released their first collection of material, Variations on a Theme, in 2005. Conference of Birds followed in 2006, and in 2007 Om switched to Southern Lord for their next album, Pilgrimage. Hallmarks of Om's music are deliberately evolving doom metal bass and drum patterns stretched out over long periods, with the changes coming so gradually as to be almost imperceptible. Not surprisingly, the band plays at an absolutely unholy volume live. - Mike McGuirk

Today Is the Day

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:55:26 -0700

Today Is the Day traveled off the Metal map on their early Amphetamine Reptile releases and have never looked back. They forged an alloy of scalping blasts of pure noise and churning, Sabbath-inspired riffs that has heavily influenced bands in and around the "power-violence" school of extreme Metal. Since signing to Relapse, they've continued to produce gore-spattered monuments of godly rock 'n' roll. Thrusting their arms deep into the excremental pitch of the human predicament, they've brought to the surface grisly visions of man's inhumanity and potential for self-destruction. Violence, sexual license, and the hot, rank breath of pure evil swarm in the lyrics of bandleader Steve Austin. If as a kid you ever kicked over a rock and had your breath taken away by the ghastly assortment of creepy things hiding there -- prepare for that feeling all over again. Today Is the Day, as Alex or one of his "droogs" might say, is "real horror show." - Chad Driscoll

Tiamat

Sun, 1 Nov 2009 12:39:52 -0800

Tiamat's ambient Metal epics drive melodic hooks into your skin, while taking you on a downward tailspin into the abyss. Singer Johan Edlund's voice is a constant malevolent presence stirring just beneath the surface of keyboard textures and tempestuous guitar jams. Tiamat's symphonic Death Metal songs emanate from "the dark side of the moon" and the eclipsed regions of the soul. - Chad Driscoll

Kingdom Of Sorrow

Fri, 29 May 2009 09:34:00 -0700

Cult Of Luna

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:35:11 -0700

Cult of Luna -- the doom-based post-metal band from Umea, Sweden -- were formed from the ashes of hardcore punk outfit Eclipse in 1998. Starting with an aggressive and primarily doom/sludge sound on acclaimed early releases Cult of Luna (2001) and The Beyond (2003), CoL began incorporating more ambient tones and textures and elaborately orchestrated song structures into their esoteric style, making 2004's Salvation a hit in the mainstream press. Somewhere Along the Highway carved further into the post-metal dabbling of Salvation, falling slightly short of mastery, but in 2008 the limitless eight-piece returned to heavier form with the labyrinthine sleeper Eternal Kingdom. On this effort, Cult of Luna -- Klas Rydberg (vocals), Johannes Persson (guitars), Erik Olofsson (guitars), Fredrik Kihlberg (guitars), Andreas Johansson (bass), Anders Teglund (keys, samples), Thomas Hedlund (percussion), and Magnus Lindberg (drums) -- celebrate a decade-long career by experimenting with nonconventional instruments like horns and chimes, and building multilayered textures and sounds while still maintaining thick sludge riffing. - Jen Guyre

Baroness

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:56:11 -0700

Hailing from Savannah, Georgia, this doom-inspired alt metal quartet eclectically mix the ferocity and mood changes of atmospheric metal with the melodic technique of indie rock and post-hardcore, forging their own brand of underground metal. Formed in 2003, Baroness is childhood friends and former Virginia natives John Baizley (guitar, vocals), Brian Blickle (guitar), Summer Welch (bass) and Allen Blickle (drums). After releasing a few EPs and splits early in their career, Baroness earned high praise for their explosive live shows, and their 2007 full-length debut Red Album was released to critical acclaim. Aside from Baroness' technical prowess and humble approach, the band also boasts some of the best cover art in the business, with frontman and notable artist Baizley's graphics gracing every album, t-shirt and show flyer for his own band as well as numerous other cult favorites in the scene. - Jen Guyre

Made Out of Babies

Tue, 2 Jun 2009 20:01:48 -0700

Pentagram

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:46:50 -0800

One of the first acts to mess with ideas that are now known as doom metal, Pentagram are a still-operational (in some capacity) metal band that got their start -- and toiled in obscurity for most of their career -- in and around Alexandria, Va. Formed by singer Bobby Liebling in 1971, the band played a murky, downtempo derivative of Blue Cheer's Outsideinside album that won them a devoted local following but failed to yield a record deal. Four singles and a slew of demos represented the band's oeuvre until 1985, when Pentagram, made up of both new material and remixes of songs written and recorded in the '70s, surfaced (the album has since been re-released as Relentless). A second album, Day of Reckoning, followed in 1987, after which the band broke up for the zillionth time. In 2001, Relapse put out a collection of demos, First Daze Here: The Vintage Collection, which -- with the doom and stoner metal movements in full swing -- took on an uncanny prescience. Pentagram came to represent a physical link between Black Sabbath and Saint Vitus, if only by the tempos and lo-fi recordings. Liebling promptly re-formed the band and started releasing records on Italian label Black Widow. - Mike McGuirk

Grief

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:30:10 -0700

Extreme fans of Black Sabbath's slow songs and Saint Vitus' super-slow songs, Grief specialized in super-duper slow songs and had a hand in what later became termed stoner rock. But their really super-duper-duper slow songs were closer to doom metal than the logo-friendly music of Fu Manchu and others that followed in the five-piece's 10-year stomp through the metal fringe. As a result, they are also often credited with pioneering the puke-tastic art of sludge metal. Due to indifference bordering on hostility in their hometown of Boston, Mass., the band packed up their gear and split after releasing six records and a handful of singles, near constant touring of the East Coast and metal festival circuit, and making two appearances on live comps between 1991 and 2001. By that point they'd gained an impressive amount of critical praise in the outsider metal scene. The music may move at a sluggish pace but each song is top-heavy with riffs, shifts in structure (usually from slow to slower) and is decisively marked by the ragged vocals of guitarist Jeff Hayward, a clear influence on Khanate singer Alan Dubin. - Mike McGuirk

Bongzilla

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:33:10 -0700

Dooood, this is like, some kind, killer green sludgecore, you know? I mean, you know, it's cool if you like, wanna sit on the couch with your bros and rock out to some seriously heavy stuff, man. Just kick it...hit some heavy guitars. Bongzilla -- like, their name says it all, you know? - Mark Murrmann

Rotting Christ

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:50:26 -0800

If you guessed from the name that they're not a Christian rock band, congratulations! Though on more recent releases Rotting Christ have toned their venom down from earlier extremes, these pathologically profane metal maestros still aim to offend with sacrilegious lyrics and brutal, brooding sounds. By integrating ambient Gothic elements into their once monolithically fast and furious tempos, this band has managed to keep its sound fresh despite its moribund preoccupations with death and decomposition. They are a classic demonstration of what sonic mutations are wrought by crossing head-banging power chord rock with the high art aspirations of Opera. - Chad Driscoll

Candlemass

Mon, 9 Nov 2009 11:46:52 -0800

This Swedish band was an early, masterful incarnation of what evolved into Doom Metal. Their inspirations were quite apparent: you can hear Mercyful Fates' sense of devilish drama in songwriter Leif Edling's arrangements and King Diamond's operatic vocal acrobatics are present in Messiah Marcolin's forcefully delivered words of human struggle between mortality and oblivion. But most importantly, Candlemass' emotionally wrought, exasperatingly melancholic sludgescapes of slowly grinding guitars owe a deep dept to Black Sabbath. Their dark, brooding anthems do indeed evoke cold sweats of approaching doom. - Marc Kate

Buzzoven

Thu, 5 Feb 2009 13:54:44 -0800

Buzzoven's albums are the stereo equivalents of the Faces of Death videos -- every song is a bloodletting. With sudden outbursts of cudgeling feedback, they launch themselves into their music with berserker intensity. Wailing and gasping like a newborn, the vocalist condenses the trauma of birth and a lifetime of humiliation and pain into every verse. As if this weren't audio savagery enough, the band also implement intermissions of loops and audio samples to tie it all together in a single gore-smeared fabric of misery -- a claustrophobic listening experience from which there is no escape. Buzzoven courageously map the oceanic depths of the human spirit with the unblinking objectivity of a documentary. Few will like what they have found there. - Chad Driscoll

Mouth of the Architect

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:34:03 -0700

Formed in 2003, Dayton, Ohio's atmospheric metal quartet Mouth of the Architect now features Jason Watkins (vocals/keyboards/samples), Steve Brooks (guitar), Kevin Schindel (bass) and Dave Mann (drums). Combining progressive and sludge-metal ethics with moody ambiance and electronic samples, Mouth of the Architect debuted their experimental sound on 2004's Time & Withering. Garnering notoriety on the underground scene with ready-made comparisons to Isis and Neurosis, M.O.T.A suffered a few lineup changes that resulted in a decision to relocate to Seattle. With the help of Botch's Brian Cook on bass, Architect released their 2006 follow-up The Ties That Bind. At the forefront of a re-emerging melancholia scene, Mouth of the Architect returned again in 2008 with their third effort, Quietly, which those hungry for lengthy songs that invoke pained-yet-hopeful moody passages eat up contentedly. - Jen Guyre

Virgin Black

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 12:16:18 -0800

The Obsessed

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:03:38 -0700

Though they almost single-handedly invented the style, the Obsessed might have gone down as a footnote in the annals of Doom Metal as most of their material has long been out of print. But in 1999, a collection of early EPs and rare tracks appeared, thus restoring the seminal band to a position of prominence. Before joining the legendary Saint Vitus, Scott "Wino" Weinrich honed his on-the-nod trudging delivery with the Obsessed. This is the band that developed the mother tongue in which Doom Metal has been spoken ever since -- themes of self-destruction and the occult, agonized vocals neck-shackled to a solid wall of feedback, and big riffs that roll like boulders. Few bands had dreamed of sounding heavier than Black Sabbath, until the Obsessed showed them how. - Chad Driscoll

Khanate

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:07:00 -0700

Members of Burning Witch, OLD and Blind Idiot God came together to form Khanate in the early '00s, taking ideas of tempo and dissonance to previously unimagined extremes. With top-volume guitar strums that sounded more like car crashes (and served as percussion as much as anything), unpredictably minimal but cacophonous drums (more crashing) and the genuinely unsettling screaming of singer Alan Durbin, Khanate became legendary for the intensity and fanatical deliberateness of their music. Between the appearance of their totally awesome self-titled debut for Southern Lord in 2001 and last gasp Capture and Release for Hydra Head in 2005, the band gained a reputation as untouchable vanguards of the avant-garde metal scene. Unfortunately Khanate released just three albums and a handful of singles, EPs and limited-edition DVDs before disintegrating in 2006, at which point guitarist Stephen O'Malley devoted his time solely to his other band, the similarly minded SunnO))). - Mike McGuirk